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Neverwinter Nights for Linux
Marshall writes "Today I received an email from Tux Games that I never thought I'd get: confirmation that they were shipping me Neverwinter Nights complete with Linux installer! I didn't believe my eyes, so I checked out bioware's web page, and it was confirmed, the linux client is complete. Also check tuxgames.com which states that they are completing the installer and plan to ship games on Monday, 23 June."
unless I have completely missed something, I dont think there is any reason not to expect D3 on *nix. All other ID games do, why not this?
And what do they get in return? Well if this thread is to be believed, nothing but gripes and complaints. No wonder they don't want to break their nuts getting a Linux port out the door - they'll get headaches either way.
And the toolset hasn't been ported to Linux, mostly because Borland supposedly didn't come through with a compiler. And the Linux Client doesn't have movies becaue Bink's a little licensing bitch. And there's not an installer since they signed a bad contract with InstallSheild, who doesn't have a Linux version. Get over it. As Linux users you guys are supposed to be the "rebels" of the computer world - don't rebel and whine at the same time.
FYI, hit up the Bioware forums, there's a linky in there to get the toolset running in Linux using a hacked WINE. It's got some glitches but they're minor from what I've been told.
Also, get it right - Bioware didn't ship this game a year ago, Atari (then Infogrames) did. They had just spent a good load of cash getting Bioware away from Interplay and Bioware was in no position to tell them to sit on it a year.
Schnapple
Off topic, but it would be nice if someone that has the completed client resource files create a bittorrent link and allow for quicker distribution than to wait in line in fileshack. Just a thought...
Sadly, no. It will take a lot more than two games to get this gamer anywhere near taking Linux seriously as a gaming platform. I go through more than two games in a week.
It's a shame, really. I know that technically Linux has all it takes, but until game companies start taking it anywhere _near_ seriously, well, it doesn't start to count as a gaming platform.
I recommend downloading Gentoo's Unreal Tournament bootable CD if you want to demo native Linux gaming for some non-believers
And "demo it to non-believers" is one thing I wouldn't do, either. Sorry, it's not there yet. In fact, if anyone really is a gamer, my honest advice would be not to even think about Linux to that end. Use it for your firewall, use it for editing docs in StarOffice, heck, maybe even for browsing the web. But for gaming it's _not_ the OS I'd recommend to anyone.
Also I recommend transgaming for Windows games on Linux. Warcraft 3, Ghost Recon, Max Payne to name a few games that run under Winex3
... if you don't have anything better to do than spend a week configuring the damn thing to even run at all. And going through the usual Linux routine of "the app wants version 42.5.1 of some library, but everything else on the system was compiled with the incompatible 43.18.9 version, while the video card drivers can't possibly be installed without the 41.2.6 version, and is incompatible with the beta AGP drivers. And oh, each of them wants a completely different and incompatible version of 42 other libraries." So you spend a month just tracking the dependencies and downloading and compiling everything, just to play a game. No, thanks.
You see, gaming is about, you know, _games_. Strange concept, I know.
It's _not_ about feeling macho that you could recompile X and the kernel to run some 2 year old 2D game. _That_ is not something that your average gamer thinks of as fun.
Your average gamer wants ideally something like the Playstation 2 that you mention: where you can just pop in a CD, and it just works.
Don't get me wrong, I'm aware than the Winex does the best it can, and is remarkable from a technical point of view. But even with that, I still wouldn't recommend Linux as a gaming platform to anyone who isn't already a total nerd. (In which case they'll have so much fun recompiling the kernel, that they don't need more than a game per year anyway.)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Bioware got a lot of press around these parts for their promise of concurrent Linux and MacOS releases. They screwed up. Badly. Not only did they miss a concurrent release... but they've missed it by over a year (considering the MacOS isn't 1.0 yet and the caveats with the Linux version).
It is also a valid point that they got further delayed by technology they didn't own. Borland, Bink, and InstallSheild didn't help. But then, Bioware is supposed to be a professional outfit. Where was the process that ensured the technology being used would be cross platform?
Bioware's savings grace is that they've slogged through the experience and are finally delivering... more or less. It seems they are trying to make good, despite obvious inexperience in doing this kind of thing. Maybe they've learned enough to make the next time (and I hope there is a next time) go smoother. After all, other game houses have managed to pull this off.
The Bioware guys seem to be honest enough to admit to their mistakes and take the criticism. And they deserve that criticism. Keep in mind that they are selling commercial software. If their Windows release had the same issues as the Linux version, they'd get the same criticism and more. You wouldn't have people saying "we should all buy this despite how rough it is... after all, they could have just made a version for the PS2 and ignored Windows."
Having said all that - there is that saving's grace. Its a good game. They're trying. And they're doing a decent enough job at delivering. I'll be buying my copy today after work. I'll even buy the expansion set if its available.
But I'll still point out when and where they screwed up. As well as where they succeeded.
Nobody is above contructive criticism.
I suppose the Windows version isn't for Windows either then, as I couldn't run it on Windows NT 4 for Alpha...
Seriously, I mean, that's just like saying "this is not a Ford engine -- it doesn't fit in my Ford Escort. Perhaps when people realise that there is more to Ford than Mondeo, then they can truly say 'It works on Ford'."
Now come ON!
Windows users have a fair point that not many games are released for Linux because the market is less than 5% of the Windows market.
You can't seriously tell us you expect them to support about 5% of the Linux market.
If you have an Alpha linux box, it's not so you can play games on it. It's because you're serious about what you're doing. And if you are good at what you're so serious about doing, you can afford to buy a cheap-as-buscuits x86 system.
But email them and complain, by all means. Maybe you can ask them if it will run on the latest $10,000 professional GPU, and if they can write support for those lasergun things you point at the screen. Those are cool. Oh, Oh, Oh, and force feedback. Gotta have force feeeeeeeeedbaaaaaack!
I have to agree this is a problem in the Linux community, but it is a chicken-egg problem. People keep Windows on their main hardware when they think they can only do their usual work on Windows. That is why when I decided to take the plunge several years back and use only Linux I made sure to install it on my main machine. Linux on decent hardware is a far better experience than Linux on a POS, though it is still fun to see what you can accomplish on a properly configured/tweaked 486 running Linux.
The problem is, people won't do this unless they can do on Linux what they normally do on Windows, and most people aren't adventurous enough to force themselves to figure out the 5000 things they need to to do this. Just judging by /., there are at least a few who were ready to take the plunge because they can play this game on Linux now. That is good.
More focus needs to go into this IMHO. It is not just about making Linux useful to Joe Sixpack, which many Linux developers do not care about. It is about making LInux more useful so people are empowered by their computer (instead of being controlled by it like Microsoft wants you to be).
It's one of the only times a company has made an in-house port of the game. Not just another 3D Tetris or something, but a real gamer's game.
Tribes and Heavy Gear certainly were great thanks to the efforts of Loki, don't get me wrong. And we have SDL, Loki_update, and some other great tools thanks to Loki.
However, when Loki went out of business, support for most of their games got dropped as well. You could not call up a company like Sierra and ask for Tribes 2 support for Linux. Patches were also discontinued. In the case of Tribes 2, it was just luck that Sam Lantinga was working for Sierra (Blizzard, to be more specific) and was allowed to patch the Linux version as well.
Bioware has made a commitment. They will always support Linux. They will, not a third party who may go out of business at some point while the game is still being developed. In-house porting is what makes the Linux port of NWN so signifficant.